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Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Bombardier have agreed to close MHI’s acquisition of the Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) program on June 1, the companies announced Thursday. A statement issued by Mitsubishi indicated that the sides have agreed that each has met all conditions for the closure of the agreement. The company will operate under the newly created group entity called MHI RJ Aviation Group.
Under the acquisition, MHI takes control of the maintenance, support, refurbishment, marketing, and sales activities for the CRJ Series aircraft, along with the type certificates. The package includes the CRJ-related services and support network mainly located in Mirabel, Québec, and Toronto; Bridgeport, West Virginia; and Tucson, Arizona. The company will continue to distribute CRJ spare parts from depots in Chicago and Frankfurt.
Still engaged in the certification of the SpaceJet 90 regional jet, Mitsubishi will work on integrating service and support between both its new program and the CRJ, it said, adding that it would provide integration milestones on an “ongoing basis.”
The pact, announced last June, calls for MHI to pay $550 million in cash and assume liabilities worth some $200 million. The deal signaled the impending end of CRJ production, control over which Bombardier will maintain until the backlog evaporates in this year’s second half.
The closure of the deal marks the culmination of Bombardier’s efforts to completely divest from the commercial aircraft business. Early last June Viking Air parent Longview Capital completed the acquisition of Bombardier’s Dash 8 aircraft business and named its new subsidiary De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited. That deal followed the more celebrated sale of a controlling stake in the Bombardier C Series to Airbus in July 2018. Airbus and the government of Quebec now hold sole ownership of the program—now known as the Airbus A220—after Bombardier transferred its remaining interest in Airbus Canada Limited Partnership (Airbus Canada) in February.